Page 149 of Empire of Shadows

But Ellie had described the mirror as a myth. Dawson wouldn’t need Adam to help him dig up a myth.

The implication was obvious. Dawson didn’t think the mirrorwasa myth. He thought the damned thing was real—and he’d just asked Adam to find it for him.

“Hell,” Adam blurted.

“I beg your pardon?” Dawson said, stiffening.

Adam scrambled for a recovery. He slapped at his neck and wiped his hand off on his filthy shirt. “Botfly,” he lied.

Dawson’s eyes widened with alarm.

“Isn’t that the one that lays eggs under your skin?” he demanded as he scrambled to his feet.

“Er… Now that you mention it,” Adam replied with a spark of wicked inspiration.

Dawson looked around himself wildly.

“Are there more of them?” he pressed.

“Probably.”

Dawson scampered for his tent.

“Thank you, Mr. Bates. You’ve been most helpful,” he called back over his shoulder.

“But I…” Adam looked back down at the map. “Ah, hell with it.”

He made a final mark along their projected route, rolled the page up, and tossed it after the retreating professor.

“That should take us to thisRiver of Smoke,” he said. “Whatever that turns out to be.”

“Marvelous. Excellent. Good evening,” Dawson retorted, and then yanked shut the flaps.

Staines frowned at Adam with the rifle held loosely in his hands.

“The botfly doesn’t put eggs in you. He gives them to the mosquito, and the mosquito puts them in you,” Staines said flatly.

“Yup,” Adam confirmed.

Staines shook his head.

“Crazy bakra,” he muttered and marched Adam back across the camp.

?

Twenty-Nine

Ellie woke upfeeling sticky. Her tent-prison had been closed up since she’d been deposited in it earlier that evening. The canvas had relentlessly held on to the day’s thick heat.

She supposed she should be glad it was simple discomfort that had dragged her from sleep, instead of another nightmare. Ellie had actually slept dreamlessly for the last two nights—ever since Jacobs had caught them and confiscated the black medallion from the psalter.

Her hand brushed over the empty place under her blouse where it had once lain.

Ellie supposed she ought to be grateful for the change. Who wanted to be regularly woken by nightmares? Still, a small part of her felt oddly as though she were missing something important by indulging in simple oblivion instead.

She sat up on her cot. Through the canvas walls of the tent, she could just make out the glow of one of the campfires and the murmur of voices from those keeping watch.

It would be cooler outside.

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